Southeast Asia’s top diplomats are gathering in Manila for three days of talks that will put the war in Iran, Myanmar’s civil war and disputes in the South China Sea at the center of the agenda. The Philippines, holding the 11-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations chairmanship this year, is hosting the meetings that begin Tuesday in the Philippine capital, with Western and Asian counterparts from the United States, China, Russia and the European Union also in the room.
The people paying the price are far from the polished tables. In Myanmar, more than 8,100 people have been killed in the fighting since the army wrested power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, and nearly 22,500 remained in detention, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights-monitoring group. That’s the human cost behind the diplomatic choreography.
Who Has the Power
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are among the attendees. Ukraine’s top diplomat, Andrii Sybiha, has been invited to attend a Friday ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, but he is not a participant in the ASEAN meetings that Lavrov and Rubio will attend. Rubio and Lavrov have not announced any plans to meet each other or Sybiha while they are in Manila.
ASEAN foreign ministers will first meet among themselves on Tuesday to discuss the hostilities between the United States and Iran, which have spilled into other countries in the Middle East and raised fears of a return to full-scale war. Two Southeast Asian diplomats told The Associated Press that the ministers plan to issue a joint statement expressing alarm over the developments and urging both sides to resume talks. The fighting has again threatened shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway where roughly 20% of global oil supplies transited before the war.
Southeast Asia, a region of more than 680 million people, relies heavily on Middle East oil and gas and was severely hit by the global supply and price shocks sparked by the Iran war. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared a national energy emergency in March to ensure the availability of fuel, food and other basic goods and to prevent hoarding and profiteering. The emergency declaration sits right where state power usually lands: on ordinary people trying to buy what they need while prices and shortages ripple outward from wars and markets they don’t control.
What They Call Security
Washington’s preoccupation with the war in Iran and the diversion of its military firepower to the Middle East has sparked concerns over its focus on Asia-Pacific concerns, including China’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea and against Taiwan, which the Trump administration has pledged to help deter. Rubio’s attendance in the ASEAN meetings is aimed at renewing Washington’s assurances. State Department spokesperson Thomas Pigott said in Washington, “The secretary’s visit advances a clear U.S. priority: a free and open Indo-Pacific that delivers safety, security and prosperity for the region and for the American people.”
Before departing for Manila, Rubio said a meeting hadn’t been finalized with Wang but that he would “be open” to it. He wouldn’t say whether he would bring up President Donald Trump’s accusations of Chinese meddling in the 2020 election. He also said he still anticipates that Chinese leader Xi Jinping will visit the U.S. in September. Rubio said late Sunday in Washington, “When you have two big, powerful countries like the United States and China, there are always going to be irritants, there are always be things we don’t agree on. But I think it’s incumbent on powerful, important countries like ours to continue to talk and have a relationship — we owe it to each other and to our people and to the world.”
On the sidelines of the ASEAN meetings, Rubio is expected to meet with other members of the Quad bloc, which consists of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia. The bloc is regarded as a major component of the American strategy to counter China and has been repeatedly criticized by Beijing as a U.S. scheme to contain its growing influence. The language changes, but the hierarchy doesn’t: states talk about security while arranging their own leverage.
Myanmar’s Generals, ASEAN’s Limits
Beyond external conflicts, ASEAN foreign ministers have been under pressure to do more to help resolve disputes in their own region, mainly Myanmar’s civil war and the South China Sea. Since Myanmar’s army wrested power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, more than 8,100 people have been killed in the fighting in Myanmar and nearly 22,500 remained in detention, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights-monitoring group.
A five-point peace plan issued by ASEAN leaders in 2021 has failed to end the violence, mainly because of non-compliance by the military-backed government, prompting the bloc to ban Myanmar’s leaders from its top-level meetings, including this week’s meetings in Manila. To break the impasse, ASEAN foreign ministers led by Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro met their Myanmar counterpart for the first time in five years this month in Bangkok, where they renewed calls for an easing of the violence and renewed efforts to foster dialogue among all warring groups.
Lazaro, as ASEAN’s special envoy, and Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow met high-level representatives of ethnic armed groups from Myanmar the following day in the Thai resort city of Pattaya for consultations. Rights groups criticized the ministers’ meeting with Myanmar’s top diplomat, Tin Maung Swe, saying it effectively abandoned the bloc’s ban on engaging the country’s senior officials and rewarded the generals without extracting any concession. Lazaro rejected that criticism, saying, “It was not and should not be mischaracterized as an abandonment of the five-point consensus. The path to peace can only be obtained through resolute diplomacy with all parties to the conflict.”
The ministers’ words are tidy. The detention numbers are not.
ASEAN foreign ministers will meet with Wang to discuss the status of negotiations between China and the regional bloc on a proposed code of conduct intended to prevent the South China Sea disputes from spiraling out of control. The territorial standoffs involve China, Taiwan and ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and confrontations in the disputed waters have particularly spiked between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and naval forces in recent years. Associated Press journalist Michelle L. Price contributed to this report from Washington.